Leadership Styles Information

Leadership Styles and What Future Leaders Need: By definition a leader leads and inspires a team to take appropriate action in favor of the organizational vision.

The question is: Have the most well known methods for assessing leadership types, such as DISC, have outlived their usefulness?

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• Are leadership styles really captured in a neat questionnaire like DISC that measures Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness?

• Can we predict the leaders from the profile that DISC generates?

• Can we test great leaders and say people with the same profile will have similar success?

Expressing Success

Leadership styles are our characteristic expression of success. It's not analyzing DISC styles and trying to emulate them: it is much more involved. It is marrying your own action-based values with the passion to deliver the vision.

The literature is full of individuals who have achieved success and the characteristics styles of their leadership. Often this is extremely insightful about these people and the decisions they made.

However, it rarely enables us to move forward to what leadership styles are current for now. Every window of opportunity requires a slightly different mix of characteristics.

If our leadership styles fit with the current expectations of success, so much the better, if it doesn't we will need more perseverance than others to join the ranks of leaders.

The characteristic style of leadership styles required for now is not something any one has ever been able to predict. Our discussions about leadership styles are always retrospective.

As such there is no template for success. The style of expression of some values correlate better with top leadership, some do not. However there is, in theory, a right time and place for everything and everyone.

The DISC Personality Report

The DISC personality report or inventory, originally developed by William Moulton Marston, profiles four primary behavioural styles, each with a very distinct and predictable pattern of observable behaviour.

The DISC Online Profile is used as a learning tool to create rapid rapport and connection with people is fundamental in selling, managing, and leadership styles. Understanding behavioral styles benefits personal and professional relationships by improving communication skills and reducing conflict. Imagine being able to better understand what motivates people and being able to recognize how to effectively deal with others.

The online DISC Profile is a validated learning tool, focusing on people-skills for personal and professional relationships and development and is used as the basis for many assessment tools including the Personality Profile Assessment (PPA) from Thomas International.

DISC is an acronym for:

• Dominance: People who score high in the intensity of the "D" styles factor are very active in dealing with problems and challenges, while low "D" scores are people who want to do more research before committing to a decision. High "D" people are described as demanding, forceful, egocentric, strong willed, driving, determined, ambitious, aggressive, and pioneering. Low D scores describe those who are conservative, low keyed, cooperative, calculating, undemanding, cautious, mild, agreeable, modest and peaceful.

• Influence: People with high "I" scores influence others through talking and activity and tend to be emotional. They are described as convincing, magnetic, political, enthusiastic, persuasive, warm, demonstrative, trusting, and optimistic. Those with low "I" scores influence more by data and facts, and not with feelings. They are described as reflective, factual, calculating, skeptical, logical, suspicious, matter of fact, pessimistic, and critical.

• Steadiness: People with high "S" styles scores want a steady pace, security, and do not like sudden change. High "S" individuals are calm, relaxed, patient, possessive, predictable, deliberate, stable, consistent, and tend to be unemotional and poker faced. Low "S" intensity scores are those who like change and variety. People with low "S" scores are described as restless, demonstrative, impatient, eager, or even impulsive.

• Conscientious: People with high "C" styles adhere to rules, regulations, and structure. They like to do quality work and do it right the first time. High "C" people are careful, cautious, exacting, neat, systematic, diplomatic, accurate, and tactful. Those with low "C" scores challenge the rules and want independence and are described as self-willed, stubborn, opinionated, unsystematic, arbitrary, and unconcerned with details.

Did you just get promoted to a leadership role and have no real idea how to manage a team?

Or maybe you're already a manager but your team won't listen to you and your boss is not impressed? What you need is to understand the differences between leadership styles or management and how you can become the leader.

Or perhaps you're just thinking about getting into your first real 'leadership' role and need to know how to make your mark as a leader.

Did you know there is a direct link between the leadership styles of persuasion and influence, yet they are not exactly the same thing? Persuasion happens with a person purposely or subliminally trying to get somebody else to agree with him or her. That is, there is obvious and deliberate effort.

This is another area where personality tests have been really useful, and that is in the area relating to leadership: identifying potential leadership in yourself and others by understanding leadership styles and personality types.

Continue to next page to find out about how this information can be used in your performance appraisals.

Do you know the answer to the old question Leader or Manager?

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